San Francisco on the company dime

I recently got back from a business trip to San Fran. I went to the Interwoven conference, GearUp 2008. The conference was pretty good, considering a large chuck of my time was spent in rooms about 3 floors below street level listening to discussions of varying degrees of usefulness. But that's what a conference is, and that's what I knew I'd be doing. They fed us pretty well, and the hotel was pretty nice. And the topics were generally pretty good.

There were a couple of good speakers. One was Guy Kawasaki, who was highly entertaining. He's written several books and is currently a venture capitalist. Tim Ferris spoke too, and he was interesting as well. He just wrote a book called "The 4-Hour Work Week". He looks like a better-looking Steve-o from Jackass.

San Francisco, what little time I spent actually in the city, was great. It was my third time there. I managed to walk around a bit. The hotel was in the downtown / South of Market area, so I walked around SoMa a bit and then down to the Embarcadero along the water. One night I joined the local culture in a pub called the Chieftain and had a couple pints while witnessing a trivia contest. My last day there, I had a whole afternoon free, so I took a bus up to the Haight and went to Amoeba Records. Wow, that place is pretty impressive! It's beyond huge. I walked out with only 4 CDs -- I exercised restraint. The bus ride there was also fun and interesting. Public transportation is usually a great way to see a city. I've never used the SF Muni before -- only cable cars -- and this time worked out pretty well. SF is really a beautiful city. If I *had* to have a west coast perch, I think I'd opt for SF. Assuming that, you know, money was no option.

It's good to be home, though. I missed Liz and Jane a lot. We had tried to work it so they'd come with me, but in the end we decided it would be more trouble than it was worth.